Selling your investment property yourself

Curious to know how many people here have sold their own property, either a PPOR or investment property themselves rather than getting an agent to do it. Was there any benefits of pitfalls you encountered? Any tips you recommend?

Instead of paying $40k-$60k or more for an agent to sell in a market that is red hot, I'm imagining it can't be too hard to sell it yourself. List it on the popular websites yourself, put up a FSBO sign, etc. The main hassle would be having to travel to the investment property every time you need to show a buyer.

As I said, curious to know who's done this before and how it all went.

 

Selling is an art.

Is it worth paying someone else, usually.

From my brief experience, putting your effort into learning the requirements to sell/buy so that you know what you are (or choose to cross out when) signing an agency agreement is far more important than opening the door for viewings

There seem's to be a markup at every turn

@VB King will chime in shortly

 

If you find it a "hassle" you definitely won't get the best price selling it yourself.

 

Unless you're very experienced with negotiating and selling strategies/tactics and can remain very objective and unemotional throughout, you'll likely stuff up the sale.

 

Sure you can sell your property, anyone can. But challenge your mindset ... are you actually paying an agent to sell your property?

Or paying an agent to make sure you get you the best price?

A good agent isn’t just a messenger (I’ve got an offer of $x ...),
A good agent is finding the one buyer prepared to pay the most for your home and then going about extracting their maximum budget from them.

Remember, every buyer has the objective of paying as little as possible. If you’re thinking of DIY, you really need to be really confident that you’re not going to be leaving money on the table, by having the selling skills to get the best price.

You’re baulking at paying $40 - $60K. Are you in danger of underselling your property by $60K or more because you haven’t got the skills / process / art of selling as sharp as they could or should be ... isn’t that the real cost?

The difference between an average and an exceptional sales result can be 10% or more. Therefore paying a good agent +/-2% & sensible marketing (whether that works out as $10K, $40 - $60K, $moreK) is a pretty good bet for a return of up to ~10%.

And relatively risk free. You only pay them when they bring you a result (price & terms) that you’re happy with.

(And you won’t need to deal with the “hassle”).

 

We probably all know that in a "hot" market (when property was selling prior to the first advertised open for inspection) that you might feel you are donating $20-60k to an agent

Looking at my local market it's no longer "hot", sure things are moving quickly and achieving good prices, yet I would bet most agents are back to having to work/push to obtain good sales

As for choosing an agent, if you figure your place is worth $1.2M then in your head make it $1.4M then choose the agent that can convince you to list with them because if they can convince you to lower your expectations they will be able to convince a buyer to spend that bit more also